Tag: Graduate Student Association

Four out of five of this year’s candidates in the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) election are running for re-election, and all are uncontested. Eric Hitsman, Jenna Amirault, Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, Jay Ramasubramanyam, and Taylor Howarth make up this year’s single slate: Grads United. Eric Hitsman, running for the role of GSA president, is the current vice-president (operations). He said he feels his current role has prepared him to take on more responsibility. “This role is not necessarily to take over . . . it’s about working with your team, your people,” he said. This year, Hitsman said he wants to focus on keeping students involved, promoting safe spaces for students and creating opportunities for Indigenous representation. He added he hopes […]

Carleton released a revised draft of its sexual violence policy on Oct. 6 in an email to students, and is now looking to collect feedback on the policy. Feedback will be collected from students until the end of the month, after which a final draft will go to the university’s Board of Governors for approval in December. Consultations on the policy have been ongoing since the spring—other than a hiatus over the summer—to get input from community groups on what the policy should entail. The recently released draft policy is longer than the one from March, and has also been restructured, said Jen Sugar, director of student affairs at Carleton. The changes were necessary after the Ontario government released additional […]

With fall semester in the books, the Charlatan spoke with the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) to see how much progress they have made in fulfilling their election promises. PROMISE: The GSA executives wanted to expand the GSA health plan and explore options to reduce costs. YES AND NO: GSA President Christina Muehlberger said the GSA has added more paramedical coverage to its health plan to include chiropractic, massage, physiotherapy, and psychology services. While the cost of the health plan did rise this year, Muehlberger said the GSA negotiated for “the lowest rate we possibly could and based off the referendum results.” Muehlberger said the GSA has begun looking into partnering with other graduate student unions to pool resources. “We have […]

The Carleton University’s Students’ Association (CUSA) council voted down a motion to report overspending on its budget in a Dec. 3 meeting which aimed to clarify CUSA’s finances. Roy Sengupta, humanities councillor, presented the “Budgetary Accountability Motion” to council, which stated overspending on the allocated budget lines should be reported to council as soon as possible. The motion was seconded by arts and social sciences councillor Adam Carroll. “Financial health of our association is imperiled if we do not take immediate action to address the out of control deficit situation,” the motion stated. After revision, the motion asked an overspending of 15 per cent or more of the allocated budget be reported to council. “The only obligations [of the motion] […]

Carleton’s senate passed a motion at its Oct. 31 meeting which added two voting seats for contract instructors at the university, according to the Graduate Students’ Association’s vice-president (academic) Michael Bückert. The academic governance of the university introduced the motion and senate members voted unanimously in favour, said GSA president Christina Muehlberger, who was present at the meeting. “I am very excited that it finally passed,” Muehlberger said. “With senate being the highest-governing academic body at the school and contract instructors playing such a vital role in academics at Carleton, they should have representation.” Daniel Preece, CUPE 4600’s vice-president Unit 2 (contract instructors) said representation in Carleton academic governance bodies was one of the issues addressed at last year’s collective […]